As founder of Rosemont Industries and
as a Lutheran lay leader, Laura Lu Scherer
Copenhaver advocated strategies for improving
educational and economic opportunities
in southwestern Virginia.

A confidante and mother-in-law of the writer Sherwood Anderson,
Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver (August 29, 1868-December 18, 1940)
continued a family tradition of service to the Lutheran Church. She wrote
fiction, poetry, and dozens of church pageants, many in collaboration
with her younger sister, Katharine Killinger Scherer Cronk. One of
Copenhaver’s poems, "Heralds of Christ," became a well-known hymn.
Her advocacy inspired the Women’s Missionary Society to establish the
Konnarock Training School to provide elementary-level academic and
religious education for Smyth County children who did not have access
to other public schools.

As director of information for the Marion-based Virginia Farm Bureau
Federation, Copenhaver advanced strategies for developing southwestern
Virginia’s agricultural economy. She emphasized the importance of
cooperative marketing of farm products in order to improve the standard
of living for farm families.

Copenhaver practiced such cooperative strategies herself by
coordinating the production of textiles out of her home, Rosemont.
She hired women to produce coverlets based on traditional patterns
and using local wool. Rosemont Industries expanded its offerings
to include a wide variety of rugs, bed canopies and fringes, and
other household items, some woven, knitted, or crocheted by hand
and others manufactured by machine. Rosemont's popular textiles
attracted customers from throughout the United States and from Asia,
Europe, and South America.

After Copenhaver’s death, her sister Minerva May Scherer, longtime
dean of Marion College, headed Rosemont Industries for two decades.
In 1960 some of Copenhaver's children incorporated the business as
Laura Copenhaver Industries, Inc., which continues to manufacture
traditional textiles.